Anti-scam filter, banning of cyberstalkers or blocking of porn sites for minors… The bill to “secure” the Internet was definitively adopted this week, after a final vote by the National Assembly (134 approvals, 75 votes against).
The Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, Marina Ferrari, welcomed this vote “awaited by millions of our fellow citizens who aspire to evolve in a safer and more protective digital space”. Here are the main measures planned by the law on the regulation of digital space (SREN).
Anti-scam filter
The bill provides for the creation of a free anti-scam filter sending a warning message to any person who is about to go to a site identified as malicious, which could lead to the administrative blocking of the implemented website.
The measure will involve establishing a list of these fraudulent sites and agreements with Internet access operators and web browser publishers.
Banning cyberstalkers
The European Regulation on Digital Services (DSA), transcribed in the bill, already includes measures aimed at curbing cyberharassment on large digital platforms, by forcing them to remove accounts that are reported to them.
But the government wants to go further and accompany this measure with a banishment sentence. Concretely, the judge may ask a social network to prevent for a period of six months – one year in the event of a repeat offense – the re-registration of a person already convicted of cyberharassment.
Parliamentary work also resulted in the creation of an “offense of online contempt” and a fixed fine punishing any content which “violates the dignity of a person or presents an insulting or degrading character towards them or humiliating” or “creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive situation against him” in the digital space.
Administrative blocking of porn sites
According to the bill, the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) will have the power to order, without the assistance of a judge, the blocking by telecom operators and the dereferencing of pornographic sites which do not do not prevent minors from accessing their content.
In the case of a site hosted in an EU country, an appeal must be made to the local authorities. If they do not react, “Arcom will be able to impose sanctions, as for platforms in France and internationally,” assures MP Paul Midy (Renaissance), rapporteur of the text.
There remains the question of the method of verifying the age of Internet users visiting these sites, which has still not been resolved: the text gives Arcom the responsibility of drawing the outlines of a technical reference.
Blocking propaganda media
The bill also gives Arcom the power to stop the distribution on the Internet of media banned in the European Union. The measure particularly targets non-European streaming sites like Odysee or Rumble, which had broadcast the pro-Russian channels Russia Today and Sputnik despite their ban in the EU as part of the sanctions taken after the invasion of Ukraine.
Cloud interoperability
A more economical measure, the text will allow companies to “change much more easily” infrastructure and IT service providers, also called cloud operators. The sector is dominated by American players AWS (Amazon subsidiary), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
The bill plans in particular to allow “portability” of data between the services of these different companies and limits the use of “cloud credits”, free purchase vouchers today used by players to build customer loyalty. It also entrusts the telecoms regulator (Arcep) with the role of resolving disputes over data billing.
Regulation of Jonum
During the examination of the text, the Senate added a legislative component concerning the regulation of games with monetizable digital objects (Jonum), removing the authorization to legislate by ordinance provided for by the government. The text offers a first legal definition of their specificities, between games of money and chance on the one hand and video games on the other.
The Senate authorized the creation of Jonum on an experimental basis for a period of three years, while supervising it to ensure the protection of minors and to guard against the risks of misused creation of online casinos. The text prohibits monetary gains but leaves the possibility, by derogation and under strict conditions, of rewards in crypto-assets in addition.